Open AccessAutonomously Autistic
Author(s) -
Anna Williams
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
canadian journal of disability studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1929-9192
DOI - 10.15353/cjds.v7i2.423
Subject(s) - embodied cognition , psychology , autism , autonomy , locus (genetics) , autistic spectrum , developmental psychology , social psychology , epistemology , genetics , philosophy , biology , political science , law , gene
The locus of pathology exists not in the autistic person, but in the interaction between a hostile environment and the subjugated autistic. It is essential for parents, practitioners, educators, and autistic people themselves to ask the crucial question— Is the autistic a machine, or an organism? Are we active agents in our own embodied experience, or are we a locus of behavior? It is not with defiance, but autonomy, that I declare as an autistic person— I am not a manifestation of stimuli and response. I am agential. I am Autonomously Autistic.